Gene Simmons in Hot Water for 'Kill Yourself' Comments

2 years ago

KISS bassist Gene Simmons is in hot water for comments he made to Songfacts.com. Simmons was answering a question about whether he gets along with former KISS members, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.

Simmons went on a rant about people who suffer from depression and drug addicts:

"I don't get along with anybody who's a drug addict and has a dark cloud over their head and sees themselves as a victim. Drug addicts and alcoholics are always: 'The world is a harsh place.' My mother was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. I don't want to hear fuck all about 'the world as a harsh place.' She gets up every day, smells the roses and loves life. And for a putz, 20-year-old kid to say, 'I'm depressed, I live in Seattle.' Fuck you, then kill yourself.

I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I'm the guy who says 'Jump!' when there's a guy on top of a building who says, 'That's it, I can't take it anymore, I'm going to jump.'

Are you kidding? Why are you announcing it? Shut the fuck up, have some dignity and jump! You've got the crowd.

By the way, you walk up to the same guy on a ledge who threatens to jump and put a gun to his head, 'I'm going to blow your fuckin' head off!' He'll go, 'Please don't!' It's true. He's not that insane."

"It’s pretty moronic because he thinks everybody listens to him, that he is the god of thunder. He will tell you he is the greatest man on earth, and to be honest with you, I like Gene. But in this situation, I don’t like Gene. I don’t like Gene’s words, because … there is a 20-year-old kid out there who is a KISS fan and reads this and goes, ‘You know what? He’s right. I should just kill myself.’

For people who are depressed, there is a way out. There are many, many ways out. And I don’t want people to listen to an interview from a rock star, who’s telling you the only way out is out, when I’m telling you, and I wrote it in ‘The Heroin Diaries,’ you can get out of this. One in 10 Americans are affected by depression at one point in their life, so this is another thing to think about. At one point in your life, meaning it will come and it will go … they say all bad things must pass, all bad things will pass, so keep that in the back of your mind if you’re feeling depression, and don’t listen to people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Triple M, an Australian radio station, has banned KISS music from their station due to Simmons' comments.